It’s been more than a year since the Great March of Return protests started in Gaza.

The weekly demonstrations were launched as a way to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians living under a draconian siege that has left Gaza on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.

They are also a reassertion of the Palestinian right of return to the lands and homes from which Palestinians were dispossessed in 1948. Two-thirds of Gaza’s population of approximately two million people are refugees.

But the activism of demonstrators has come at a high and deadly cost. Still, people march.